Five in-depth reports on digital payments have been released in the past 30 days covering online payments for North America, Middle East & Africa, Europe, Asia-Pacific regions and globally. The reports were assembled by yStats.

A major concern for consumers in North America is the security of their payments, whether by credit card or one of the innovative methods. One half of U.S. respondents to a recent survey cited in the new yStats.com report indicated a wariness regarding credit card or other online payment when shopping online. Merchants and credit card companies are searching for a solution to the growing incidence of fraud in online retail, including biometrics such as fingerprint scanners.

Digital retailers in the Middle East and Northern Africa conveyed that over two-thirds of sales are paid in cash on delivery.

However, South Africa is an exception to this trend, with a large share of online customers making purchases via bank cards. Nevertheless, over half of South African digital consumers would make more online purchases if cash on delivery was an available option.

An advanced market like the UK, nearly two thirds of E-Commerce customers use bank cards to make online purchases. Other advanced markets like Denmark, Austria, Belgium and France contain online consumers who also prefer bank cards. One outlier is Germany where E-Commerce consumers prefer invoicing, though this number of those who prefer invoicing is at a decrease. In 2016, more than half of E-Commerce consumers left a shopping cart because their desired payment method was unavailable.

Merchants and payment processors in The Asia-Pacific region are learning a variety of methods is necessary to accommodate the payment preferences of online shoppers. A survey cited in the report reflects that nearly one third of shoppers surveyed in Japan had abandoned an online shopping cart when they reached check-out and learned that their preferred method of payment was not available.

Third party research on a global scale relays that E-Wallets are the top payment method by share of E-Commerce sales worldwide, whereas credit cards come in second place. E-Wallets presumably outperform credit cards on a global scale due to China, the biggest online retail market in the world, where they account for over 50% of E-Commerce sales.